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Freed Taliban vow to continue jihad
Taliban fighters have vowed to continue their "holy war" against the American-led coalition in Afghanistan after they are freed from a notorious prison in the north of the country. Many of the 400 mostly Afghan prisoners to be released from Sheberghan jail, near Afghanistanâs Uzbek border, under an amnesty offered by the countryâs president, Hamid Karzai, say that they intend to return to the fray against the West, according to prison officials and the word of the detainees.
| Maybe next time they'll just get killed. It's like an infection, you know. You can't intern bacteria. |
The disclosure of their plans coincided with a Taliban suicide bombing in Kabul that killed a British soldier and injured four other people and came despite assurances from Mr Karzai that dangerous followers of the fundamentalist movement would not benefit from the amnesty. "God created me a Talib," declared Khal Mohammad, 55, an Afghan Taliban commander freed under the amnesty. "He [a Talib] is one who struggles for the happiness of Allah. This is the order of the Almighty Allah - to fight the infidel. It doesnât matter if they are American, Russian or British."
Sheberghan Prison is a bleak fortress on a dusty plain and holds the third largest contingent of al-Qaeda-allied prisoners in the world, after Guantanamo Bay in Cuba and Bagram airbase on the outskirts of Kabul. Most were taken there in December 2001 after the fall of the Taliban stronghold of Kunduz. President Karzai, under election year pressure from elders of his own Pathan [Pashtun] community, announced last month that the prisoners would be freed, despite the recent surge in Taliban-led resistance. In Kabul the prisoner offer is seen as a part of Mr Karzaiâs attempts to counteract the Taliban comeback by making concessions to the movementâs less-extreme wings. "The time for making people suffer and jailing them without reason is over," said a spokesman for Mr Karzai. Those eligible for amnesty were ordinary Afghans who "have every right to a peaceful and respectable life in the new Afghanistan".
| ... which consists of rolling their eyes and waving guns." |
The security manager of the jail, Fazal Hadi, is less sanguine. "Maybe some will not rejoin but I think most will come back," he said. "They belong to the fundamentalist groups and a lot are madrassa students, and Iâm afraid that they will return."
| I'm hoping they get killed next time. |
The prisoners are highly adept at tailoring their views with an eye on gaining release, presenting one view to Mr Karzaiâs envoys and the opposite to other visitors. Mr Hadi recounted: "A few Americans were here recently and after they had gone these Talibs called them imperialists, and said that if they were released they would come back and kill Americans."
Western diplomats in Afghanistan have warned Mr Karzai not to compound the task facing international troops in a misguided attempt to build bridges with opponents. "We acknowledge that this is an attempt to build bridges with footsoldiers in the âmoderateâ wing of the Taliban but we would oppose any process that results in the release of violent opposition that endangers international troops," one said.
| A "moderate" Taliban only beats his own wife. |
When the Telegraph visited Sheberghan, support for the Taliban was strong among the inmates. Young fighters chimed in with the elders, vowing to restore the puritanical movement that pulled the country back into the Middle Ages. Abdullah, a 26-year-old from the southern province of Zabul - a hotbed of Taliban resistance - declared that he wanted the Taliban returned to power, to restore the stability in everyday life which he said was missing since warlords took control. "In Taliban times it was stable," he said. "There was no fighting, and our homes were not looted." However, not all of the prisoners agreed and some admitted to being disillusioned with the Taliban after enduring years of hardship since signing up with the movement in northern Pakistan. Conditions at the jail have apparently sapped the fighting spirit of some prisoners, who now yearn to return to family life.
Sheberghan is a bleak place of incarceration for its 463 Pakistani and 437 Afghan inmates. It was substantially rebuilt in the 1980s by the Soviets, but its cells feature lice-infested beds and crumbling walls. Meals have improved following the intervention of the Red Cross Thingy, and prisoners now eat beef twice a week, rice every day and vegetables such as carrots and potatoes. Despite this, most have scabies, gastriotisis and sciatica and at least 47 have tuberculosis. Most Pakistani prisoners at Sheberghan have no imminent prospect of release. President Karzai said that the issue must be negotiated with Islamabad. Many Pakistani inmates claim to be angry at the Taliban for tricking them into travelling to Afghanistan to fight.
Posted by: Dan Darling 2004-02-01 |
